September 9, 2009

14 comments:

My 11-year-old son surprised me the other day when he said he could move 20 tons with his bare hands. I asked him to explain and he said that he had pushed a docked ship away from the dock until its lines tightened I then told him that if he whacked a golf ball on bare ice surface, it would go for miles and miles and miles. He was astonished.

The quintessential superpower question is, if you had a choice, would you pick the power to become invisible at will or the power to fly? I know from direct experience that this question will A) begin hours if not days of debate amongst geeks/wonks/nerds, B) begin at least ten or twenty minutes of debate even at a more “cool” party full of beautiful stupid people, and C) fill about four hours of air time during a morning show on a rock radio station.

What everyone usually forgets is that just because you can fly, doesn’t mean you’re super-strong, or, conversely, just because you’re invisible you’re not undetectable. It takes a really sad adult with far too much time on his hands to really get into the nitty-gritty of this question.

Far more fun is one that I started bandying about toward the end of college. If you actually found a magic lamp, what would you wish for? Assuming of course that the djinni involved detests humans and will give you as little as possible and, maybe, try to find a way to make you suffer as the result of your wishes. I love this one and, unlike super powers and the geek/nerd stink thereof, most chicks dig it. It can really take the shark fin off your back in new social situations where you really DO have a shark fin, but want to conceal it until after breakfast.

I love the way they say that "you" could lift a car under extreme enough circumstances. I seriously doubt that most could perform such a feat under any circumstances. It takes more than an adrenalin rush to accomplish the feat. There also has to be a complete erasure of fear for oneself. In other words caution has to be thrown to the winds. And how many can do that? Far from all.

I find the echo-location power amazing. That would be a wonderful thing for even the sighted to be able to develop for certain night work.There are also people with prenatural noctural vision. People who can see passably well on moonless nights. Even see shadows cast by starlight alone. Described as similar to night vision goggles by one such gifted person...nowhere as good as goggles, but far from blind at night. An evolutionary throwback. Once, primates had far more rods and less cones in the retina..then evolution shifted that. But some with throwback genes do get surplus rods..(Everyone should, like scuba diving or being on a sailboat...try strapping on night vision goggles and going for a hike...once.)Also at night, though we have less need of it...because we evolved when night was far more dangerous than day .....our bodies enhance hearing discernment then. Test show that people taken away from noise clutter of modern society hear things others miss, at night we see many people whose hearing rises to a new level, and of course blind people are noted for enhanced hearing senses..

************I disagree with the author on photographic memory. Perhaps it isn't perfect, but I had the provilege of meeting someone with it once. An AF Major General. We had an accident that we found had a quite similar counterpart back in the 70s, but what was left of that old accident investigation record was spotty and parts investigators notes and analysis were missing altogether. One person noticed the general, then a LT Colonel, was part of the investigating team, remembered the general was famous for his ability to remember almost anything. And I went to interview him with a secretary for any details he could provide about the missing data.

Turns out he wasn't involved in some of the data we sought, that was done by others, but he gave us vivid detail of what he was involved with and even what he recollected others had said about what they had found as the report was bringing together various people doing various parts of the investigation (three airman fatalities, two seriously injured from a ground systems malfunction..). Even met with us at his house on off-hours when other things drew him away.

We had his stuff binned as "background" since it was just too big a leap to take his specific timeline and facts (one 3.8 pound piece of the casing was found 22 feet 7 inches from the most distant fatality to accident point source...). But his timeline checked out, then we found another guy later long gone from the AF who had kept a copy of most of his notes and some of the generals. And photos.

And we found that every fact, every trivial detail, every photo scene down to the smallest object was just as the general said it was, 20 years later.

It was impressive. Clearly helped him throughout his career, and when he retired and went into a think tank...